Welcome to Reality

It was the usual monotone color of her room, that overly pale blue color
which left no impression, but for some reason, that day, she found it
interesting.

As if it had become a habit, she had awaken at around half past five
and, not even the exhaustion she felt from going to bed late last night, helped
her drift off once more into dreamland.

“In the end, I’d rather be awake
than dream about carnivorous snakes..” she concluded, sinking as far as she
could into the soft mattress.

However, as if to condemn even more her day, her alarm went off louder
than usual. She ought to that that heavy metal sounding alarm, she could no
longer tolerate waking up with a heart attack.

Days like this had the tendency to go wrong till the last chime of
midnight. Exactly what she felt as she tapped her seatmate on the arm to get
her attention.

Her head felt empty, as if a virus was deleting all the data stored
inside, her body numb, as if her soul was being sucked out, and her senses
flaring, as if she was about to faint.

Like an unstable baby, she walked to the door of the classroom, voices
coming and going. She could focus no longer on the world before her, and so she
closed her eyes and succumbed to the darkness.

A beeping sound. A cold atmosphere. A soft bed. A heavy heart. Another
life.

“That’s right,” she thought,
slowly opening her eyes. “...It was all
just a game.”

She had been pulled back into her reality.
She was no longer a character of that game. She wasn’t going to stare at
that monotonous pale blue wall again. She wasn’t going to be called by that
name again. She wasn’t going to live that life again.

“Your parents are here to pick you up,” informed a woman. She was most
likely in charge of monitoring how the girl was doing in the game and in real
life.

There was no need to answer, no need to interact with someone you will
never meet again.

As she got up, she noticed just how much her hair had grown while she was
out playing the life of another person. Her long boring brown hair, she
couldn’t exactly say she had missed seeing it.

Whispering reached her ears, apparently, while she was gone, she had
become the gossip of the rehabilitation center.

“It isn’t that much of a surprise...
Considering I’ve been in the game for four years,” the teenage girl
thought, walking with her head held high.

Her perfectly leveled bangs, trimmed just above the upper eyelids, and
cheek-length sidelocks together with her porcelain skin made her silvery-blue
eyes stand out even more, and her all overall appearance.

Many would label her as a beauty, while others as just an average girl,
claiming they had seen better. It didn’t matter who was right, the girl could
care less.

“Miss Kingsbery, your parents are this way,” instructed a man, while
gesturing towards a long corridor.

She had no other choice but to follow him, she couldn’t quite place
herself at the moment. Fortunately, it didn’t take long to reach wherever they
were going.

“Please.”

Cautiously, she opened the door before her and took a step in. As soon
as she was fully inside, she was tackled to the ground by a brunette girl.

Being ambushed was not what she had expected, even less was hitting her
head so hard on the floor.

“That freaking hurt..” she groaned, sitting up as best as she could.

“I missed you a lot, big sis!” cried the weight on top of her.

She recognized the girl as her 14-year-old little sister Robin, who had
grown considerably well whilst she wasn’t round. Though it seems that
personality wise she hadn’t changed much.

“I missed you too dummy but... Don’t ever attack me like that.”

The two got up from the floor and hugged each other. They’ve always been
close siblings, even with the small three years gap between them.

Her mother was still the same beautiful person she remembered, slightly
older but time had that effect on people.

“It’s great to have you back,” commented her father.

Like always, he was standing right next to his wife, one arm around her
shoulder. His fear of her disappearing will probably never be cured, that
traumatizing night will haunt him forever, however his young appearance and
calm demeanor didn’t let it show.

“Yeah..” her tone wasn’t enthusiastic, she was happy to be back but she
was not glad.

Her parents quickly caught onto that, they knew her better than anyone
else, however it was also true that they knew nothing of her.

“Let’s go, Helena.”

“I’m sorry...” she thought,
sighing inwardly at her own behavior. Her family was there for her, however it
was as if she was alone in the world.

She felt incredibly empty, yet she didn’t know why. There was surely
something missing from her life, a part of her was missing but she couldn’t
remember what it was. Furthermore she couldn’t remember why she had closed
herself in the game for that long, there must have been a reason.

Helena forcibly stopped her thoughts at that point, whatever it was, it
was stirring her heart in an unpleasant way.

Looking out of the car’s window, she noticed that the world had hardly
changed. It didn’t matter that she hadn’t been around for four years,
everything was as shining and cold as she remembered.

The buildings built with tons of windows to reflect the many lights of
the days, and height so high that they towered over the people. The world was
distant, suffocating even. It wouldn’t be a surprise if people felt as if they
were living inside a birdcage.

The teenager always found that scenery to be cold. Buildings who
couldn’t shiny by themselves were a lonely sight while their impossibly high
heights made them seem like detached beings.

“Don’t look out!” shrieked Robin covering her eyes so she could no
longer stare at the crude world.

Gently, she placed her hands over her sister’s and removed them. She
held her hands in hers, they were extremely warm, alive and delicate.

“It’s alright, Robin. I shouldn’t divert
my eyes from the world.”

Her eyes were unbelievably cold as she said that, they were reflecting
exactly what she was feeling.

Empty. Cold. Dark. Deep down, she was no longer the sister the girl knew
once.

“What truth, big sis?” the
younger sister thought distressed. She was tired of just standing on the
sidelines as her older sister suffered, even if it meant invading her private
space, she was going to do something for her.

The family of four lived in the outskirts of the city, where one could
live surrounded by nature in a peaceful environment. The house with many
windows, to let in as much light as possible, emerged from the green, blooming
near a small artificial river with white and brown bricked walls.

“I will be in my room if you need me,” informed Helena, walking up to
the third floor.

The house had three floors: the first consisting of the living area,
with living room and dining room; the second with two bedrooms and a guest
bedroom, while the third was Helena’s floor. Under normal circumstances, she
was supposed to be on the second floor with Robin but due to her powers going
out of control very often, it was decided that she should be on the third
floor.

“This place is so nostalgic..”
the girl thought, closing off all the windows and revealing the starry ceiling.
Her parents made it that way so she will be no longer afraid of the dark.

She threw herself on the bed and lied there unmoving for a long period
of time, resembling a corpse from how still she was. Eventually she closed her
eyes and fell asleep.

“Nice to meet you.”

“I
was abandoned by the ‘world’.”

“There
is no such thing as ‘love’.”

“I love
you.”

“With you, even this ‘world’ looks
beautiful!”

“Unfortunately, this is... Goodbye.”

“Stop!” Helena yelled from the
deepest corner of her heart. Memories she had no recollection of were trying to
invade her mind, and pierce through her already weak heart. Probably her four
year confinement were due to her heart breaking for the first time.

Slowly she sat up on her bed and looked around her room, trying to
distract herself somehow. A sigh escaped her lips not a second later.

“I really don’t understand why they call it Void when all I can really do is make things float around,” the
girl mused as most of the objects in the rooms were flying around.

The items were subject to the second form of her Void, Void of Gravity. Her power had only 3 forms, all very docile contrasting with the catastrophic name her
power had been given.

People like her were called Alters,
those who underwent a genetic mutation during a catastrophic event 15 years
ago. It was not by will nor by the principle of the ‘chosen one’, all those
whose immune system was weak or incomplete or nonexistence were affected.

The catastrophic event, which would have been otherwise seen as the most
breathtaking and natural event ever, radically changed the world. IK Pegasi, a
binary star system of the constellation of Pegasus, had gone supernova 150
years ago, the light of the explosion taking 150 years to reach earth and
illuminating the sky for 12 days. While all that was a
scientifically-explainable astronomical phenomenon, what began changing the world that day was
not something that could be explained by any kind of science.

All over the world, many kids under the age of 12, pregnant women and
people affected by autoimmune diseases died in masses, while those who survived
developed strange powers.

The rate of survival was unpredictable, no one knew who was going to
make it through the night or under which conditions one made it out alive. The
only known thing was that whoever came out victorious was definitely going to
change the world, in one way or another.

Subsequently the 12 days of new
creation, named such by a famous writer who directly went to speak with
infected people during the days, a new set of laws were issued especially to
keep Alters under control.

Commonly, Alters are considered
as an ulterior evolution of humans, trying to adapt to the new environment.
Even though it’s already been a century, people are not about to forget that
Earth is no longer the one it used to be. The core of the world began
malfunctioning, slowing down during the periods in which it is farthest from
the Sun and speeding up during the periods in which it is nearest to the Sun.
The world united under one government, one language and one name, Heart.

“Sis, dinner is ready!” called
Robin from the stairs, since no one was allowed in Helena’s room when she was
inside.

Robin as well was an Alter, being
victim of the mutation while she was still just an embryo. Her power was called Space Distortion, she could create distortion within space, and it
had 3 shapes. For some strange reason
she was exceptionally good at controlling it.

“Coming!” the older sister answered.

Eating with the family was something normal for them, yet Helena
couldn’t set aside the feeling that something was wrong. Was it because there
was a four year gap between them? Whatever it was, it was making her uneasy,
she didn’t like it, not one bit.

Sitting at the dinner table and thinking that your parents were
strangers? She loathed it.

“What a horrible person I am...”
she concluded that the problem was her. Her parents were still the same and her
sister, though grown, was still the same as well. The only one who was strange,
who was alienated was her.

“Thanks for the food,” Helena mumbled quietly, standing up and leaving
the dinner table without another word.

Her room was as quiet and as dark as she had left it, not like she was
expecting it to change with her presence there once again. Objects began
floating once more as she ventured further into the room, trying to search for
her bed.

“Annoying...” she groaned, forcefully cutting the connection with her
powers.

All the items fell to the ground, gravity effectively bringing them
where they belonged: the floor. The girl suspected some things might have
broken due to the sudden impact, but the dizziness that suddenly hit her
prevented her from checking.

“Right... Cutting of the powers is
something dangerous and only done in extreme cases,” she remembered,
quietly falling on the bed. Her body felt heavy, just like it did right before
she exited the game.

Slowly she closed her eyes to the world, not thinking of anything in
particular. She was simply going to sleep, yet it felt like she was locking
herself up in a fantasy world.

Maya D:
Three kisses is a good book, and it's interesting, but the characters could be more well developed and less frustrating (although that could be just me). Its also kind of annoying how many times Emma calls Liam the "bad boy," and how she thinks that being friends with someone will make you into t...

Sosha Pfeil:
Wow this story was amazing it had me wanting a sequel 😩 .. I just wish it would had his view in everything as well but it was really good . I thought he wasn’t going to be her mate but it worked out in the end .

Maranda Kelso:
I love sweet love and this one was so very very sweet I like how the couple so real .I hope to find more of her books she a very good at tell her story and I will find more of her storys

Ganglia Genghis:
This story is honest. The way the main character deal with betrayals she faced speaks volumes. And the best part is, this story depicts reality in life. It is not mushy or anything and I just love its plot development. Straightforward and convey the message directly. Really hope the author keeps ...

Katie Trevarthen-Land:
Read this more times than I care to remember, it is thoroughly enjoyable to read and one of my absolute favourites. I will never get bored of this and I highly recommend it for anyone to read.

FreYa:
You can't stop once you started reading this. I finished reading this one in just 6 hours. That's how good this is! 😁 It has just the right amount of giddiness and kink. 😉 Can't wait to read your other books.

fazzonejc1:
Entertaining, comical and a little bit of mystery! I love the characters and their ability to stand their ground. I am only one quarter of the way through and hope this book is published soon.

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